I'm in a down-cycle right now... and actually I'm still watching Netflix movies. I ran across some good Jackson Pollock documentaries and it was a relief to hear the famous art critic Clement Greenberg discuss how even Pollock would have a down time of weeks and sometimes months after a big show.
I have avoided booking any more shows for 2008. I have maybe 1-2 instead of my standard 6-8 solo ventures. I'm trying to think about how to approach the next 365 days. The past three years have been fantastic for my exhibition record and getting my name out there, but I have been painting so frantically that it has left little room to breathe. While it has been adventurous and always entertaining… I have suddenly had the time, with my last big show of the year now hung, to wonder where I actually prefer to live and how my painting style should best reflect that motivation. Like everything in life the simplest answer is the most courageous one. Consumerism for mass-produced goods, however seems to abound now more than ever. Family and friends can’t understand why someone would desire a place without easy access to the offerings of the global economy; while I want to run screaming from it each waking morning. As the evenings turn bitterly cold and the late nights grow increasingly silent, I drift more often into dreams of a distant heated studio, a forgiving model and freshly mixed oil pigments - all of which seem (in my fantasy) to be located in that far away Montana home on the corner of 1st Street and 6th Avenue.
How does the statement go… “I looked into the abyss and the abyss looked back at me”, or something like that. – DN
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
As I look over some of your work, I cant help but notice and gather sence of incognita in your posts as well as your paintings.
Do you feel as if you will ever appertain to any specific region or will you continue to float in a complete state of backwater and query?
Will it end? Is there an end? When Jackson Pollock was asked in an interview: "How do you know when a painting is finished?"... he replied "How do you know when your finished making love?"
This is true of all things, including the painting's muse. It's also true that I experience frequent cycles of traveling exhaustion... feeling spent. Perhaps I am just trying to earn my sense of home. I do not know where that will take me, but I recognize that the journey continues to change both my perspective and self-image. - DN
Post a Comment